Ruling a Fairy Tale Kingdom

Session 32

29

APR/17

The last thing I remember was a flash of green light and then blackness as my lifeblood drained from my wounds.

What Ava and Gilian remembered being entangled in a mass of plants, like a giant head of lettuce. After getting themselves out they found themselves in a clearing surrounded by a bramble of thick thorns. The lighting was strange, everything had a green-blue echo (shadow?) giving an eerie appearance. There were other oversized lettuce patches which started to twitch as others, including myself, emerged healed from the plants.

There was a hooded figure who was there who appears to be Ren Lakejumper. Gilian greeted him but he didn’t remember? He replied that time was fluid or some sort of esoteric wisdom (or foolishness). In any case, he said he was fulfilling a bargain he had made apparently his payment being saving our lives and giving us a wrapped bundle which contained potions, labeled with our names, including my dog’s. There were several for each of us. He directed us to drink the potions and break the seed in the middle of the clearing to “return”.

I received a protection from Evil, 2 oils of magic weapon, and potion of fly. Curiously, the labels were written in my handwriting. The other’s potion labels were also in their own handwriting. My loyal dogkeeper, who was not in the least upset that I stabbed earlier, cast resist cold on all of us (20 Cold). We drank the potions, cast various magics in preparation for battle, and broke the seed.

When the seed was broken it was like all the colors were snapped back into place as the clearing vanished and we appeared right outside of the door just as it was being pushed opened by cousin who mentioned “it was a good thing we had that cold resist up”. Hmmm, it was if our defeat didn’t happen and we were doing this for the first time, yet I still remembered the battle, these thoughts going through our minds as we entered the Ruined Tower to confront the Shadow Queen once more.

The Queen, hovering invisible over the throne like before, challenged us once again as her undead knight stepped out from the shadows. The Shadow Queen dual cast once again, blasting us with a Cone of Cold and Ice Shards at Cousin, who withdrew to treat his wounds. Then that damn cat appeared again, engaging my loyal mastiff! Ava engaged the cat with blade and cold magic which it seemed resistant to. I fought the cat at first as well. Our fair witch, Leanna, cast glitterdust on the Queen, revealing her position. Gilian finished off the demon cat and shifted his position to start fighting the Black Knight.

The Queen cast her protective spell like before, making her invulnerable to lesser magics. The Black Knight replied to Gilian’s challenge with a mighty strike of his glaive channelling foul energies into the blow, but did not fell the brave dwarf. I commanded Valkyrie to attack the Knight while should battle instructions to my allies. I was told later by Ava that the Queen tried to Dominate me (and not in the kinky way) me, casting a spell from a scroll, but it was ineffective due to the Protection from Evil.

I was not so immune to the Black Knight’s glaive! Ouch! Neither was Eva to a Phantasmal Killer. While the Black Knight did go down to daggers, teeth, and claws. Fair Eva fell to the floor dead, Thorn rolling free of her limp fingers. With limited time before she became invisible again, Gillian charged the Queen, tearing with his draconic fury! I flew over to Thorn and picked up the blade which changed into a fighting dagger as it drank blood from my palm.

I flew up to engage the Queen and stabbed her once with Thorn which was enough to kill the Bitch. As she died, she muttered “I see now you meddling bastard it wasn’t enough to get my mother you had to get me to!”

We searched the area and found a secret compartment under the throne that contained a mastercraft book out of nightmare hide and silver inlay. There were also two scrolls. The book spoke and asked where its owner was. Gillian showed the dead body of the queen and it stated that one of us should possess it, preferably a spellcaster. It called itself the Book of Shadows. Meanwhile, Kaiden placed the shards into the Mirror which when the last piece was put in showed an image of a desert. This was no mere picture as daylight flooded the room. Through acts of will the images changed but before we could figure out much but tower started to crumble. Kaiden managed to change the image to the Capital and we went through the mirror as blocks of masonry came down around us.

Afterwards, Kaiden turned in the Troll Blood to the Alchemist. As a reward we recieved potions in return. It was decided to give two cure light wounds and two protection from evil potions to everyone.